Dodger (40 page)

‘As you can see,' he went on as we saw the dismal prison loom up in front of us, ‘I've altered much since last we met.'

‘Can't argue with that,' I said, fighting the urge to tell him that he still stank of bad cheese. ‘You're a changed man.'

‘But you, John …' He shook his head like a disappointed parent. ‘You ain't altered a bit.'

‘I'm a prosperous sheep farmer,' I protested, ‘with a full pardon from the Governor of New South Wales.'

‘So I'm told,' he said. ‘And chummy here is supposed to be your valet. But I know that you and him was out picking pockets in Oxford Street just over a week ago. And you ain't got a pardon for that.'

Jem, I thought, must have told the peelers that fact in revenge for my kicking him into their arms. I did not let it trouble me however; there was no proof against us.

‘A woman reported having her pocket picked whilst riding the omnibus on the Friday before last. She was lucky enough to see
the perpetrator again in the company of two of my brother officers what took chase of him. He got away, but their description of the felon didn't half sound a lot like you.'

‘Do me another turn, Horrie,' I scoffed. ‘There are a thousand thieves in London what look like me. That's why I'm always getting the blame for things I never done. Is that the best you got?'

‘No,' he said and he stopped walking just as we reached the high-walled corner of Newgate Prison. We was stood under a bright lamp what shone clear enough for us to be seen by two guards what stood outside. Horrie reached into his long-pocket again and smiled. ‘We got this.' Then he pulled out a long wooden item, so well painted and carved that it was unmistakable as the one we was familiar with. It had a bend in it.

‘New truncheon, is it?' I said as he held it out for us both to see.

‘This was thrown at one of the officers by an accomplice of the pickpocket as he made his escape. No one in the force had any idea what it might be at first, but it was sent from station to station to see if anyone could place the funny thing. You know us bobbies.' He grinned. ‘We love a good mystery.'

I was most careful not to glance at Warrigal as Horrie spoke but I was sure that he would not react to the sight of his dead father's boomerang. Instead I kept my eyes fixed on Horrie, who was very much enjoying dragging this all out.

‘It was Inspector Bracken himself what at last solved it for us. He was so interested in the thing that he even took it to the British Museum to have a word with the people there. It's a native throwing stick, they told him –' he looked to Warrigal and smiled as if all this was a lovely coincidence – ‘from your part of the world.'

Warrigal said nothing, as ever. Horrie just held his gaze until at last Warrigal looked away as if uninterested.

‘They always come back,' Horrie sniggered, and put the boomerang away again. He began walking us towards an area with many peelers strutting about and police vans coming to and fro. It was not a place I would walk past on any night if I did not have to. ‘The inspector has taken an interest in you, John. Know why?'

‘Yeah,' I said as we passed the outer gates of Newgate. ‘I was unlucky enough to meet him on the night I arrived back in England and he took an unfair dislike to me. He's the man what arrested our mother, Horrie, as you no doubt know. She hung for it, so he said. She would have spent her last night alive in there, I would have thought.'

I pointed over to one of the small grated windows of the prison and felt myself getting angry for what he had become. He was her favourite – she had always shown that to both him and me – and now he had become a policeman and allied himself with the very same man what had destroyed her. I tried to keep my anger masked but it was not easy. Horrie had betrayed our people and I would never forgive him for it.

‘The inspector is a great man,' he went on, as if going out of his way to aggravate me. ‘And he's shown me many kindnesses. After arresting our mother he made enquiries about me, her son what had gotten into trouble with the police but was now struggling to become one himself, and he took me under his care. He showed me how to conduct myself as an officer, taught me right from wrong at long last, and without his approval the force would never have accepted me. ‘The new police needs boys like you, Belltower,' he always says, ‘just as much as it needs men like me.”

Horrie went on to tell me about Bracken's many accomplishments and it was only when he told me that he sometimes took tea with the man and his wife that I decided that I could no tolerate this no longer. I stopped in my tracks and turned on him.

‘He killed our mother, Horrie,' I said, my voice raised and blood up. ‘By arresting her, he killed her as good as if he'd just wrung her neck there and then. And there you are, drinking from his teacups.' Horrie just looked back at me, doubtless surprised by how passionate I was being about a woman what had never been worth much as a parent. ‘You ain't got no loyalty,' I went on. ‘You ain't got no respect for the dead and you ain't got nothing to be proud of. You're a fucking disgrace!'

Horrie looked like he was ready to bash me for this but he stopped himself in time. Then he sighed and shook his head as if nothing could be done with me. ‘He's a father to me now, John,' he said. ‘And to a lot of the young constables. Just like that old Jew was a father to you and the others. Can't you understand that?'

‘What I understand,' I said, still bold with anger, ‘is that this man you're speaking of is the same one what brutalised me on the only night he met me. Told me to stay out of the city of my birth even though I had a full pardon for my crimes. He'll be the death of me as he was for our mother if he can be. He's an evil sod, Horrie, don't be fooled.'

‘Oh yeah?' Horrie said, and then pointed towards the door we had stopped under. There was a police sign hanging over it. ‘Well, you can tell him all this yourself if you're up to it. He's inside waiting for you.'

*

Inspector Bracken seemed to have grown taller than when I had last met him and it was some seconds before I realised that this impression was likely to be on account of the hat. He was dressed in full peeler uniform but it was clear he was of a higher rank than anyone else in the station. He was stood up as Warrigal and myself was led into a small and stuffy police office and he looked
the two of us up and down as Horrie shut the door behind him. We was the only four people in the room.

‘I recall telling you,' said Bracken, his manner as stiff as ever, ‘to stay out of my city.' There was two chairs what faced the desk he was stood behind, but neither me nor Warrigal chose to sit on them. We just stood there opposite him, all defiance.

‘If you want to see my pardon again then you're welcome to,' I said with even less civility than he had spoken. ‘I don't mind if you make a fool of yourself once more.'

There was a short silence as Bracken regarded me like something he wanted to snap, but I refused to be intimidated by him.

‘And that queer stick what the constable has just shown us,' I went on, ‘ain't nothing to do with neither me nor Warrigal. We ain't seen it before and I don't care what the British Museum has told you.'

His eyes left me and he looked over to Horrie, who had crossed over and was standing now against the adjacent wall, ready to act if need be.

‘I have read that pardon of yours once,' said Bracken at last as he flicked his eyes back to me. ‘And it told me more than it meant to. It told me that you have fallen into bad company, Mr Dawkins.'

‘No surprise there,' snorted Horrie from the wall. I shot him a mean look as Bracken ignored him and went on.

‘As I told you on the last time we met,' said the inspector, ‘your character witness is known among the police force. He's even more notorious than Bill Sikes once was.'

‘Lord Evershed?' I replied in scorn. ‘He's an aristocrat. A hero of the Empire. He's friends with the Governor of New South Wales among other people. And if his word is good enough for the Governor, then it should be good enough for you.'

‘It is roundly believed by a great many officers …' he paused
before continuing and his eyes darted over to the door as if afraid that someone might overhear this next part, ‘that he was responsible for the death of his first wife.'

‘You said as much before,' I replied. ‘And, whether he is or not, it don't have much to do with me.'

‘Why doesn't it?'

‘Because it was years ago,' I replied fast. ‘I was only a kinchin then.'

There was a small movement to the side of Bracken's mouth. I cursed myself for speaking too quick.

‘You know a lot about it, Mr Dawkins,' he said, and I wished I was just keeping quiet like Warrigal was doing. ‘Why?'

‘I dunno.' I shrugged. ‘I just heard the story, same as everyone else. She took her own life.'

‘Or had it taken from her,' Bracken said. I did not reply but returned his glare. I could not start talking to the police, not with the mouthful I had just given Horrie outside about working for them, but nor did I care if they suspected Evershed of murder. He was not my friend and I saw no reason to defend him.

‘His wife had betrayed him, did you know that?' Bracken asked after a long pause. ‘With a famous man – George Shatillion.' Another silence as he searched my face for a reaction. ‘This is called a motive.'

I was finding staying silent to be most difficult as it was not a natural state for me. I don't know how Warrigal could stand it.

‘He left for Australia soon afterwards so any investigation was difficult, particularly considering his peerage. George Shatillion became a recluse for the next seventeen years and rarely left the house apart from for the occasional walk. Perhaps he suspected his life too was in danger. Earlier this year, on one of these walks, he fell to his death from a high cliff in circumstances that strike
me as improbable. I believe that people walk along that path often and rarely stumble.'

‘What,' I said when I could contain myself no longer, ‘are you telling me for?'

‘Because, Mr Dawkins,' said Bracken in a more urgent voice now, ‘you are involved in something and I must know what it is. After seeing his name on your pardon I telegraphed a friend of mine in Australia who is aware of Lord Evershed to ask if anything suspicious was occurring. He wrote back to say that Evershed had set sail to England for the first time since leaving all those years ago and that he will be docking here any day.' Bracken looked to be getting the most excited I had ever seen him. ‘He's back, Dawkins, and I think you know why. Tell me.'

I am ashamed to record that I almost considered it. I would have been so relieved to see Lord Evershed get taken by the peelers and to therefore be free myself from his tyranny that it almost seemed worth the moral transgression of telling the police all I knew about the man. But of course there was nothing I could tell Bracken about these murders that would mean much anyway. Timothy Pin would just deny it and Evershed would have me killed soon after. The only thing I could really tell him about was the business of the Jakkapoor stone and the threat against my life if I should fail to produce it. But none of that would have interested the peelers. It was not illegal to believe in mad curses and the police would not be inclined to offer protection to me of all people. So I just remained silent for a while longer and Bracken spoke again, this time in a softer tone.

‘You should not consider the police force to be your enemy,' he said. ‘It may interest you to know that a man we arrested recently, a burglar named Jem White, tried to blame his crime, a murder that took place at a cottage in Kent, upon the two of you.
I happen to doubt that this is true because the crime took place on the very night after I encountered you both at the Booted Cat and it seems unlikely that even you would have been out burgling that soon. But I could have ignored that instinct and arrested you regardless. I chose not to because I do not like to charge people with crimes they did not commit.'

If he said this in the hope that I would burst into tears of gratitude then he was left disappointed. This move of acting hard towards a person only to then do them a small favour was a trick often employed in criminal gangs in order to gain power over vulnerable minds. My mind was not that vulnerable however and I asked him instead if we could go now.

‘I've promised my valet that I would take him to the music hall,' I said, and reached for my pocket watch to see what the time was, ‘before the last curtain falls. So is there anything else?'

Bracken's face hardened again and he stepped around the desk and came towards me. He reached into his coat pocket as he did so and pulled out a card.

‘Know this then: if you refuse to cooperate with us then you shall be considered an accomplice of Lord Evershed's.' The card had the address of this very police station on it and he placed it into my hand. ‘Should you change your mind however, and come to us with any information we can use against him, then the Metropolitan Police Service will look more kindly upon you.' He stepped back and gave Horrie the nod to open the office door. ‘Do not be fools.'

*

Outside the station Warrigal and myself had to button our coats up as the night had become colder still while we had been inside. We walked away from the police vicinity and looked for a cab to hail. The interview with Bracken had depressed me further and I needed cheering up.

‘Boomerang,' Warrigal complained once we was sure no peelers was about.

‘Well, you're the one that chucked it,' I said back. ‘You've nobody to blame but yourself.'

I looked up and down the road to see if there was any hackney carriages approaching and I wondered if we was being followed by any other policeman, uniformed or otherwise. I was still lit up from the whisky at the Cripples and this was making me even more suspicious than usual. My thoughts fell upon whatever Ruby might be doing.